


Kiss and Tell

by flyingisland



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Confession, Drinking, M/M, Mild secondhand embarrassment, Pining Lance (Voltron), Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 08:38:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16133648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingisland/pseuds/flyingisland
Summary: During a drunken game of truth or dare, Lance makes the best and worst mistake of his life.





	Kiss and Tell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GrapieBee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrapieBee/gifts).



Lance, admittedly, never had the opportunity to drink very much alcohol during his time on Earth before he traveled from the Galaxy Garrison to the desert, and then from the desert, inside of a giant blue alien warship, to the deepest reaches of space.

His experiences with some of the universe’s more volatile and hallucinogenic liquids have been limited to the nunvill that he still has trouble swallowing without gagging just a little. Nunvill, the nasty experience that it always has been and only continues to be, reminds him of swigging mouthwash after brushing his teeth in the mornings and evenings, but only in the regard that it’s more of a necessity, an unpleasant evil that he continues suffering through for the sake of achieving a bigger goal. It serves a grander purpose, it’s worth the awful experience of putting it in his mouth in the first place. The fresh breath and a nice buzz after a long day of fighting the evil militant forces of the Galra are unfortunately worth the stinging in his mouth, or the rancid hot dog water taste.

He has a feeling that he’d prefer nunvill if it tasted mintier, but that’s a train of thought for a different time. That thought, and the mental back-and-forth of comprehending if Alteans truly think that the stuff tastes anything but disgusting when Coran is the only one who he’s ever witnessed actually drinking it.

But there’s nunvill, and a few traditional alien beverages that he’s never been given the proper opportunity to judge. He’s been on the receiving end of a religious christening among the tribes of the planet Bartox, tasted the sickeningly sweet nectar of the dripping flowers of Pex before Coran had warned him that it’s known as one of the most addictive substances in the known universe.

He’s collected an internal catalog of many foods and drinks and plants that accidentally cause dizziness and vivid hallucinations—but the very first time that Lance presses a glass of human-made alcohol to his lips and takes a short, nervous sip, he can’t deny, at least to himself, that he still feels like a little kid sneaking around behind his parents’ backs, stealing a bottle of brandy or scotch from some stereotypical 1950s-style alcohol cabinet that they’d never even admittedly had around the house.

And frankly, it’s been over half a decade since he left home for this journey into space. He’s surpassed the legal drinking age in even the strictest of places by at least a couple of years. His father had offered him a beer when they’d started rebuilding their town and Lance had helped him clear the debris from around the old skeleton of their house. While Lance had politely refused that offer, he’s well aware of the concept that now, his father would have no qualms against allowing him to let loose and enjoy himself at the closest thing to an office party that he thinks he might ever attend.

So, despite his trepidation, Lance forces himself to stop feeling so bad about all of this. He compartmentalizes his vague, misplaced guilt. He promises himself that later on he might enlist the help of a shrink to assist him in understanding how he can possibly still feel like that bright eyed kid that he was before he left, while also feeling like a seasoned soldier. He tells himself that there will be more time in the future for that sort of conversation, and that time isn’t now—not while he’s already taken a seat among his friends and fellow paladins. Not after he’s spent the last five minutes staring at his own frowning expression in the reflection of his drink. So he downs it instead. He revels in just how fruity and wonderful his own sour expression tastes once he drinks it away. Hunk smiles at him happily, sweetly. He asks Lance if he wants a refill, and Lance is more than eager to confirm that.

Hunk seems as though he’s having a little bit too much fun catering to everyone’s tastes, playing bartender for a bit instead of the seasoned soldier that he frequently has to be. Lance isn’t even entirely sure where they collected all of these different mixes from. It looks similar to the rows of shelves behind every bar he’s ever seen—so many different colored and sized glasses sparkling under the bright lights of Atlas's cockpit as Hunk flitters around, mixing liquids in tall, long stemmed glasses and passing them to the desired paladins.

He also isn’t sure where Shiro’s crew is, but Shiro is here reliably, chatting to Keith and Allura about something business-related before Hunk hands him an overfilled, orange-colored cocktail complete with a little purple umbrella floating between the ice and the slice of lemon.

Their conversations are scattered and quiet for now, as Hunk makes his rounds and they all learn how to relax for the first time in ages. Pidge, at the furthest corner of their clutter of makeshift seats—singed bean bags from dorm rooms and lightweight patio chairs that they won’t have a difficult time lugging out of here once their little party is over—already seems frustrated as she explains some complication algorithm to Romelle. But Lance finds himself feeling more sorry for Romelle than Pidge in this particular situation—with her confused, albeit determined expression, as though if she asks Pidge enough questions, she could ever actually hope to understand all of the words that Lance suspects are only half-real as they leave Pidge’s mouth.

Thankfully, Keith’s mom and Kolivan are nowhere in sight. They’re nice enough, Lance thinks, but their seriousness leaves a lot to be desired in casual situations such as these. Lance isn’t sure how Keith might feel about their absences. In the time since Keith reunited with his mother, they’ve been nearly inseparable—and with good reason, if he allows himself to be mature about this and imagine how he might feel in Keith’s shoes. He’s also spent as much time with his own family as possible since they’ve made it back home, so he can’t blame the guy for playing maybe the universe’s most extreme game of “catch up” with the mother who he didn’t meet until he was in his twenties. He’d missed his own parents within a few days of traveling to the Garrison for his training. He’d already had to resist the urge to drop out and go home the very first time that he slept alone in his too-quiet dorm.

But at the same time, he sure didn’t consider inviting any of his own family to this party when Hunk and Romelle originally suggested a “small celebration”. Krolia deserves to be here just as much as anyone else, sure, but he wonders if perhaps she’d forgone this party for the sake of giving her son a little bit of breathing room to be young and have his own friendships that aren’t directly connected to her.

As it is, this group is tight-knit and personal. He’s part of a small, lumpy circle, at the center of which, Hunk prepares everyone’s drinks. There’s himself and Hunk, Shiro, and Allura. Romelle, then Pidge, and finally… There’s a smiling, laughing, oh-so relaxed Keith.

There’s no music and no flashing lights. There isn’t a lot of food save for some chips and dip that Hunk put together an hour or so before they all filed in here. This isn’t any more wild than what Lance imagines that an office party might be, but the introduction of real, human alcohol into their routine has his nerves alive with an energy that won’t allow him to sit still for very long.

Hunk passes Keith a green-tinted drink with mint leaves floating with the crushed ice in the center. Lance can pick up only clipped pieces of their conversation through the noise, but he commends Hunk for his ability to guess which flavors they might each enjoy. Shiro, Lance is sure, was given something fruity and sweet. Keith’s drink seems sour.

And his own concoction has subtle hints of coconut—and enough extra flavor that he suspects that there isn’t very much alcohol in it at all.

This assumption is the very first mistake that Lance will make tonight.

It’s the first step that he’ll take towards totally uprooting everything that he’s built for himself in one clumsy, fell swoop. One firm kick to topple down all of the carefully laid secrets that he’s hid precariously for years now.

But in this moment, as he takes a deeper gulp of his drink, he thinks that it tastes good. And when Hunk comes over to top him off before anyone else is even halfway done with theirs, he tells himself that Hunk must be shorting him on alcohol because he knew that he’d like the taste of his drink too much.

Alcohol, in Lance’s experience, always tastes bad. And Hunk must know that, and must have given him a very small percentage for the sake of not listening to him complain about the flavor.

His second mistake is not watching Hunk as he puts the drink together.

His third mistake is agreeing enthusiastically when Romelle suggests that they play a game.

They settle on something simple—something juvenile that makes Shiro laugh and Keith roll his eyes when Lance curiously slurs the excited suggestion of it. Truth or Dare—he waggles his eyebrows, his cheeks feeling suddenly warm as he struggles not to spill his drink. He’s on his third at this point, and Shiro pulls Hunk aside and mutters something to him about cutting Lance off.

Which Lance thinks is totally stupid, of course, but he isn’t nearly coherent enough right now to argue about it. Pidge takes a short break to explain the rules to Romelle and Allura—simple and short as she spares Lance a brief, exasperated look. Hunk settles himself between her and Allura on a half-deflated bean bag chair, taking a short sip of his own drink and turning to Keith and Shiro on his other side to ask if they’re enjoying theirs as well.

Shiro thanks him sweetly. Keith’s smile is radiant when he tells Hunk that he’s enjoying his a lot. And Lance purses his lips, the long-abated jealousy roiling suddenly white hot in his chest. He’s never felt particularly threatened by Hunk—mainly on the basis that Hunk hasn’t shown interest in any of the girls or guys who Lance has chased after in the past—but now he’s wondering exactly what it is about Hunk that makes Keith’s smiles look so easy. Why suddenly the two of them are cosied up as though they’ve been best friends for years.

And why—his heart hurts even thinking about it—he’s never been capable of dragging out that soft of a reaction from Keith. No matter how many times he’s tried to bury the hatchet and just be kind to one another.

And granted, yes, he hasn’t exactly been obvious in his pursuit of having a more normal relationship with Keith. More often than not, Keith’s attempted to bridge some kind of gap between them and he just hasn’t been emotionally prepared yet to accept it— but still! Even still, what does Keith possibly see in Hunk that he couldn’t also see in Lance himself? Sure, Hunk is nicer and easier to get along with, most days. Hunk doesn’t make his intentions purposefully deceptive to hide some kind of petty schoolgirl crush that he’s carried with him since they were kids bickering at the Garrison during their first year. And Hunk is smart, and funny, and strong. Hunk makes amazing food and great drinks, even if sometimes he skimps on the alcohol.

Hunk is exactly the kind of person who Keith would get along with, sure. He’s tender in a way that Lance has never figured out how to be. He reads people better, takes the time to get to know the nuances of their personalities before he charges in, guns blazing, demanding to be their best friend in the way that Lance often does by accident.

But Hunk…

Hunk doesn’t feel for Keith how Lance feels for Keith.

And something about that feels incredibly unfair.

It feels almost like betrayal, that Hunk could build this tender relationship with Keith behind his back. And Lance, forever lagging behind, still hasn’t wrapped his head around how to say hi to him without any trace of antagonization.

He slumps back in his chair, tipping his chin to the ceiling and cradling his half-empty glass to his chest. He tells himself that he’s nothing but ocean water lapping the shore. He’s a waterfall, he’s a charging stream. He’ll roll around this frustration and every passing struggle that he’ll soon endure. He’ll allow himself to pass around anything standing in his way, and he won’t get caught up on the jagged stones, the stalks of water plants growing up from the stony river floor. Someday all of this will be nothing but a funny memory. Someday, his emotions now will feel no more serious than every heartbreak that he experienced as a young, clumsy kid before this.

He’ll move on from Keith. He’ll meet someone new.

And Keith, maybe, will meet someone too.

He’s thankful when the game starts. He doesn’t want to think about any of this anymore.

The first few turns are about as mundane as he was expecting from this group of wet blankets. It’s no surprise to Lance that none of them remember how to have fun. Pidge claims a truth on her first go, and she admits to having a crush on a few scientists who Lance has never heard of throughout her life. She dares Allura to finish the rest of her drink in one go—which Allura does in a long, impressively unflinching swig, before slamming her glass down with so much force onto their wooden crate tables that the bottles on top rattle and Hunk springs forward to stabilize them.

Shiro then admits to his truth that the instructor that he disliked the most was Dos Santos, for some reason that Lance misses among a fit of sudden vertigo. But everyone is laughing when his head stops swimming. When he finally manages to focus, he’s surprised that Shiro has picked Hunk. Hunk confesses to his own truth that he’s never been very good at making souffle, of all things, before he calls upon Keith during his resulting turn.

Lance’s attention is suddenly diverted from his own dizziness to Keith—to his wide eyes, the subtle flush crawling over his high cheekbones—and how suddenly he looks so much prettier, less big and angular than when he came back from his time with the Blades. He reminds Lance once again of that small, confused kid. Of the classmate of his that he was never very good at reaching out to. Of the terrified paladin who was forced into the role of a leader far too soon.

Lance’s chest aches under the unyielding weight of missed opportunities. He wishes more than anything right now that he could stop this stupid game, grab Keith, and drag him somewhere private where he might be able to tell him just how many times he’d desperately struggled not to pull him close and kiss him—to comfort him and spoil him until he never had to hurt anymore, ever again.

Until he grew just as strong and unbreakable as he seems to be now.

Keith’s lazy smile while Hunk talks to him is so dazzling that Lance almost forgets to pay attention when Keith elects to go with a truth over a dare. He’s suddenly so possessed by the thickness of Keith’s eyelashes, the peachy hue to his full lips, pursed at the edge of his glass.

Hunk asks Keith then—slurred and clumsy, stopping to compose himself with a hand tight against one jittery knee, “S-so Keith… have you actually, you know… been into someone before?”

Keith’s cheeks immediately take a darker shade of scarlet. His eyes widen, and he chokes on the drink that he’s just tipped into his mouth. Shiro laughs—loud and cracked and unpracticed enough that it jostles a second wind of focus into Lance—before clapping Keith firmly on the back.

“He means like a crush, Keith,” Shiro says then, his smile so wide and his teeth so dazzling white that it’s hard to look at him for too long, “N-not… anything gross.”

Keith swallows deeply, wiping his mouth with the back of his free hand. Lance is relieved to find that it’s still covered by those tacky fingerless gloves. He’s happy to see that not everything has changed with Keith, seemingly right before his very eyes.

Time feels as though it’s moved entirely too fast for both of them. Lance feels as though he’s missed so many important chances along the way.

“I have,” Keith says then, “I’ve liked someone before.”

His eyes flick, momentarily, over to Lance. And Lance feels burned up from the inside out—like the gas inside of a lantern. Like a switch has been flipped and he has no choice now but to burn, pinned, under the hefty weight of Keith’s unwavering stare.

But the moment passes, and perhaps a lot quicker than it feels in Lance’s brain. Keith goes back to sipping at his drink, and he seems surprised when Pidge tells him that it’s his turn to choose someone.

“O-okay, okay, got it,” he slurs, “S’not like I’ve ever played this before…”

He skims over the room with his eyes, and Lance feels that warmth pass over his skin once more. He tasks himself with inspecting the watery remnants of his ice swirling with the diluted cocktail in the bottom of his glass. He acts as though he’s looking for some mint leaves or fruit—all of the silly little frills that Hunk dressed up other glasses with.

Keith calls on Romelle. Lance doesn’t even have the ability to focus on whatever he asks her to say, or do. The game passes, the room spins. Lance feels a fuzzy warmth crawling over his skin, thrumming in his pores, rumbling in his belly. He feels as though he’s floating unanchored, as though the world around him is a hazy, orange-tinted dream, and the voices humming in the backdrop are nothing but Red’s purring, lulling him into a state of dreamy half-awareness after the stress of a long, perilous battle for the sake of the known universe.

It’s been awhile since he’s embarked on a mission. It’s been months since they found peace. They’ve focused instead on rebuilding—on bridging the gaps between the different planets and teaching them to live free. Lance’s day-to-day is suddenly filled with more diplomatic work than the fanfare and the action and the excitement.

And he doesn’t miss it, really. But sometimes he misses the beginning of everything: that feeling of profound possibility. The realization that he’d found himself in close quarters with a longtime rival, longtime crush. That if he so wished to—if he were ever strong enough or smart enough or suave enough, maybe he could even become friends with him.

He misses a version of himself that had those opportunities. He misses a dumber, younger Lance who could have been nicer, but elected instead to act like a petty child.

He’s wiser now, on a smaller leash.

In hindsight, only now, does he realize that he should have taken advantage of the chances that Keith gave him, before they were eventually whisked away.

When someone calls his name, Lance realizes that he’s almost allowed himself to drift off to sleep.

“O-oh, my turn? You want me?”

He flails somewhat while attempting to straighten himself up. His drink sloshes in his glass, but there isn’t nearly enough of it left to spill. Still, Hunk looks concerned for a moment. He looks to Shiro apologetically, and Lance can barely catch the end of Shiro’s worried question about whether or not he’s had too much to drink.

“M’fine—r-really, what’s the question? Truth or dare? Truth, obviously.”

He doesn’t even know who he’s talking to, but when his dizzy vision finally stills long enough for him to focus on the faces around him, it’s Pidge who appears as though she’s waiting to say something.

She adjusts her glasses on her nose—pushing them higher up the bridge then lifting them so they catch in the light. Lance squints at her, suddenly grouchy as the shine of it hurt his eyes, sending a skitter of an ache through his skull.

But he forces himself to focus when she does finally speak. And the question that she asks him, at first, doesn’t make any sense. He has a lot of trouble understanding exactly why she’s smirking as though she’s vying to ask him something that’s going to completely humiliate him in the morning.

“Are you in love with an alien?”

He tips his head to the side. It’s strangely specific, and definitely not the first word that he’d use to describe Keith. Half-alien, sure, maybe, but not alien enough to be comparable to any of the people who they’ve met on their journeys. Keith doesn’t have any antennas or protruding tentacles. As far as Lance knows from greedy, guilty glances in the locker room, he isn’t equipped with  _ anything _ that shies too terribly far from the realm of what appears to be human.

But Pidge is raising a brow now, looking as though she’s on the brink of laughter. Lance realizes that he’s captured the attention of the entire room—all watching with wide, expectant eyes, as though he’s about to say something so shocking or juicy that they’ve been waiting forever to hear.

He reaches back, scratching at the nape of his neck. And he tips his gaze to the ceiling, the cracks and shadows shuddering, blurry. Everything is less focused than he’d like right now.

“I—I dunno if I’d say _ alien _ , really…”

It’s so silent for a moment that Lance swears that he can hear everyone’s individual heartbeats. Or maybe it’s just his own—pounding so hard in his chest now, at the mere prospect of talking about his secret crush  _ in front of his secret crush _ without him finding out, that he can barely focus on anything else.

“You can’t be serious,” Pidge says, “You wouldn’t call this person an alien? What would you call them then?”

Hunk rattles off a laugh that sounds entirely too loud through the haze in Lance’s mind. And Shiro shushes both of them, telling them to be nice.

“Lance isn’t going to lie about this,” he says, “if he says that he doesn’t like an alien, then… maybe he doesn’t.”

He doesn’t sound perfectly convinced, and Lance still can’t understand any of this. He tilts his head to look at them again, ignoring the dizziness and the strange sense of free-falling. Ignoring the warmth and the way that the drink in his belly suddenly feels very unsettled. As though, any minute now, it might come back up.

He isn’t sure why he cares so much about clarifying. No one else had to explain themselves. Even Keith—when surely everyone wanted to know about that crush of his just as much as Lance did—wasn’t expected to divulge any extra information. But Lance feels as though he needs to understand this. He wants to understand why everyone is so keen to object his classification of Keith as a non-alien, considering everything that they’ve seen.

“I-I mean, they’re kind of an alien, but like—not really? I don’t know if I’d think alien when I first looked at them.”

Pidge looks so quickly from Lance to Allura, then back to Lance that her face looks like nothing but a blur. Lance blinks a few times, rubbing at his eyes. He resists the urge to slap his cheek, if only to bring a deeper sense of reality to this entire bizarre argument that he’s suddenly found himself barreling straight into.

“Okay, but… she’s an alien? Like, I guess if you ignore the marks and the ears, she looks human enough, but are you really going to tell me that Allura isn’t an alien just because she looks remotely human?”

Lance’s laughter feels like barbed wire dragging through his throat. Along with that laughter, and his following words, he can feel just a little bit of the drink roiling hot and uncomfortable in his belly climbing back up.

“A-Allura? What’s she got to do with Keith?”

And suddenly, as though he’s jumped from the ledge of a cliff and plunged into the depths of an icy sea, Lance feels as though he’s fully enveloped in this moment—in the scene playing out before him, and the realization that he could have continued denying his feelings for Keith, could have pretended that his crush on Allura hadn’t passed years ago, could have continued with the pathetic, directionless life that he’d led comfortably before this, if only so he’d never have to look Keith in the eyes and witness the rejection that he’s feared for so long.

But the words are out, and there’s no taking them back now. Pidge lets out a long, low, “wow”, genuine surprise so foreign in her expression that Lance almost laughs. But the sickness in his belly rises ever-higher. He makes the mistake of looking Keith in the eyes.

He finds nothing there—nothing but dark, beautiful, captivating irises. Nothing but black hair curled to perfectly frame ivory cheeks. He doesn’t find a rejection, or disgust. He doesn’t find comfort, or pity, or embarrassment.

Keith watches him, stoic and quiet and still. And somehow, for some reason, it’s even worse than being humiliated with a half-hearted, uncomfortable, _ “I don’t feel the same way.” _

Lance pushes himself clumsily from his seat, standing on unsteady feet. He forgets about his glass, in his panic. He barely reacts with a small flinch when it clatters and spills its contents on the floor. And before he can say anything to remedy this situation, before he can explain this all away with confused drunkenness, or his own stupidity, or some joke or snide comment that might make this all go away—

He nearly vomits in front of all of them, but he catches it with a hand clapped over his mouth. And he rushes out then, awkwardly, humiliated.

And as he goes, he swears that he can feel Keith’s eyes boring, like lit coals, into his back.

 

* * *

 

It’s 11AM the next morning when Lance finds himself slumped bonelessly against the edge of his bed. He recognizes it eventually as his temporary dorm room at the garrison. While the lights are off, he can still make out the subtle outline of the barren, pristine room from the glow of the digital clock on his nightstand.

At first, he isn’t entirely sure how he got here. He doesn’t know why he feels so tired or sore, or why he feels so hungry and sick at the same time, or why his throat hurts and his head swims, and he feels restless and exhausted all at once.

He drags a hand through his sweaty, greasy hair. He imagines that he must have had a pretty hard shift at work last night if he’d even foregone a shower in favor of at least…  _ attempting _ to climb in bed before he passed out.

He curses quietly, stumbling and swaying haphazardly as he tries to drag himself up with hands gripped at the edge of the mattress. He considers just laying down and sleeping, considers resting up and feeling more bright-eyed before he has a go at the locker room to clean up, but he knows that he won’t be able to rest when he feels so grimy. And he knows that, at the very least, he should replace his stiff garrison uniform with pajamas or he’ll feel even more uncomfortable once this mysterious sickness ebbs away.

So, with a heavy heart and even heavier eyelids, Lance finally manages to right himself and slink towards the door. His mouth has a sour taste, and his throat feels rough as though he’d spent the night before screaming—and when the automatic door to his bedroom hisses open, the lights stab pinpricks of a headache over every surface of his skull, boring deep into the sockets of his eyes and bundling a migraine right between both of his eyebrows.

He groans miserably. He rubs a hand over his face before he takes a step out into the hall. And he keeps his eyes on the glossy tile of the floor, squints to shield himself from the overhead lights that beam down brighter than the most vivid alien sun. He knows that he has high enough clearance around this place to get away with not saluting the passing officers and cadets who offer him meek greetings, but he also feels just a little bit guilty for not showing proper respect. He might be one of the revered defenders of the universe, but he understands that the soldiers of Earth have seen their fair amount of war since he went away. And they deserve to be greeted, even if he’s too sick to find the strength to do so.

The locker room is thankfully close enough to his quarters that he finds himself shoving open the door sooner than he expects. His body acts as though on autopilot—having spent many, many months sleeping over in that dorm, traversing these halls, half asleep and stretched thin, filling his time back at the Garrison plotting strategies for rebuilding and the rebirth of a new universe with the commanders who used to terrify him.

It’s a strange change of scenery. A younger Lance might not have anticipated this.

He thinks about changes while he steps further into the locker room, allowing the door to swing closed and click behind him. Two of the showers are currently in use, but there’s one against the far wall that’s empty. He strips his uniform, bundling it up and setting it on the bench just across from the stall. He runs his fingers through his oily hair one last time before pulling the curtain open and stepping inside.

He closes it behind him. The shock of cold water when he first turns the knob, at the very least, jostles him enough that he feels somewhat more coherent.

But he holds tight to the tendril of thought that led him here—the idea of things changing. He isn’t sure why that feels suddenly so familiar, suddenly so pertinent, when he contemplates it all the time. It’s hard not to think about how different things were before he left, when he’s come home to such disarray. It’s difficult not to look at the broken state of their slowly rebuilt planet and not imagine what it used to look like before the Galra stole this away from them too.

But something about this entire thought process is bothering him now. He feels as though it has something to do with the big, empty blip of time that was last night.

So he retraces his steps as he pushes down the shampoo pump and lathers his hair. He considers shaving his face when he gets done, but he decides against it. A little bit of stubble won’t be a big deal for one day. He has the rest of the afternoon and evening to relax before tomorrow brings in a new day of planning. Yesterday—he draws in a sharp breath.

Yesterday they planned that party, he remembers now. They scheduled for it to fall on the first night of their two consecutive days off. On an evening when they’d all be together to celebrate the start of this new chapter of peace and prosperity, and the ending of a terrible war. They’d purposefully placed it during a time that would give them an additional day to rest up before they needed to get back to work.

He remembers that Hunk and Pidge had set out to collect alcohol. It’s easier now to do so, since they opened trading channels with the rest of the galaxy, and began not only importing goods from distant planets, but sending their own goods out to be enjoyed by the rest of the universe. But for last night, they’d bought stuff that was familiar, he remembers that too. They’d wanted to have a blowout as though they were all just normal people on a normal Earth. They’d wanted to introduce the Alteans to some human traditions and cultural norms that they’d spent the last few years talking about.

They’d gathered together in The Atlas, because it was the ship with the most room. And the dorms were too stuffy and confining and dark. The conference rooms held too many stiff and uncomfortable memories of the many meetings that they’ve shared, and will continue to share, there.

It had felt a whole lot like a high school reunion, at first. Except he’d spent the last few years trapped in a floating castle with many of those people in space. There hadn’t been time and distance to surprise him when he’d watched everyone file in, but somehow, he’d still reveled in just how much they’d all grown.

Keith, especially, he thinks. With that long hair pulled back in a braid, trailing down his back, over his newer, bigger clothes, still managing to stretch snug over the firm, chiseled muscles that stretched beneath. His dark, long-sleeved top had brought out all of the subtle pinks of his skin, framed the stark V of his shoulders into the cinch of that perfect belly that Lance couldn’t stop himself from staring at for just a little bit too long.

Lance finds that even now he has a lot of trouble comparing the sullen little beanpole Keith from his memories to the ripplied Samson of a man who currently leads the Paladin team. Lance’s memories of him get fuzzy there—between the Keith who refused to pilot the black lion, the Keith who threw himself into danger recklessly, to the Keith who went away for months and months, for way too long as Lance found himself sick with worry over whether or not he was okay.

The Keith who had sat across from him hadn’t even seemed like the same person anymore. Lance had been caught in an astounding realization then—that he’d run out of time. He’d squandered every opportunity that he’d been given to get closer to Keith before it was too late. He’d allowed himself instead to fester in his insecurity and self-doubt. They’d grown apart. Keith had gotten better. Stronger. More confident and comfortable and way too good for Lance.

And like a meteor crashing down to Earth, like a bullet piercing skin—suddenly, painfully, acutely, Lance remembers vividly exactly how he ruined his own life last night.

_ “A-Allura? What’s she got to do with Keith?” _

He cradles his head in his hands, moaning miserably. He allows himself to slump forward, resting his forehead against balled fists, pressed into the wall. The warm water sprays from the shower head, trails down his back in thin rivers that ease just the smallest amount of tension from his muscles. His headache doesn’t go away completely, but for a moment, maybe, it had felt better.

Before the memories of his biggest blunder rush to his head with the hot blood, the dizziness, the urge to throw up all over again.

The only thing worse than living forever with these secret feelings is actually telling them to Keith. The only thing more terrible than living this miserable lie is living in a world where Keith still doesn’t love him, but he knows about Lance’s feelings and, what?

Pities him? Hates him? Is Keith disgusted? Is he uncomfortable? Is he angry or scared or so caught off guard that he still doesn’t know how to react?

Lance can discern no more from that stoic expression in his foggy memories than he could last night. He wants to punch Keith’s stupid, handsome face just as much as he wants to kiss it. He wants to shake him by the shoulders and demand to understand how Keith could possibly change so much but somehow stay the same.

He wants to figure out how Keith feels about all of this just as much as he wants to hide here in this shower stall until the water runs cold and then, perhaps, exist here as soap scum circling the drain for the rest of his miserable days. He wants to yell at Pidge for goading him into admitting all of that—for trying to pry information about a long-dead crush that he might have had on Allura before the war was won—because what’s her problem, anyway? Why does she suddenly feel as though she has a right to meddle with his romantic relationships just because he’s always been too chickenshit to actually make a move?

He rattles out a long breath. He knows that he’s not actually mad at her. And he understands that, in her own snotty, nosy way, she was only trying to help. He’s grown close enough to his fellow paladins over the years that he gets it. He gets that Pidge just isn’t good with people, and she doesn’t understand why anyone would stop themselves from achieving any dream. She doesn’t get what the big deal is, might even think that relationships are as easy as one person liking the other, and suddenly they’re together.

He almost laughs. She’s so good with computers, with math, with technology, but she’s never been very good at cracking the codes of human beings.

He wants to tell Hunk just how good he is at making drinks, wants to suggest going into bartending if this whole hero of the universe thing ever goes belly up. He hadn’t even thought that his drink had any alcohol in it at the time, but he should have been smarter than that. Hunk’s just as likely to short him on booze as he is to purposely skip a few instructions in a recipe or botch the math when he’s trying to design some super-advanced weapon or ship. Hunk had tried to cut him off when the time should have been right, but he’d chugged his drinks too fast. Drunkenness had rushed him so much quicker than anyone could have anticipated.

And Keith has been more than happy to bury the hatchet many times, but Lance was never smart enough to let him.

He goes through his list of regrets slowly in his head. He decides that this is the moment that he really does die. He’ll order flowers to be sent to his mother. The papers will read that he lived a proud, successful, heroic life.

He’s survived war and death, famine and intergalactic magic. He’s wrestled with space monsters, swam with mermaids, floated aimlessly in the dark vacuum of space.

But the thing that kills Lance is the same aimless crush that he’s had since he was thirteen years old. It’s these dumb, childish feelings. It’s getting drunk and outing himself for the love struck dummy that he’s always been—right in front of the person who he’s secretly loved more than anyone else in the whole galaxy.

He knows that Keith will probably forgive him. He knows that none of this is as big of a deal as it might feel right now.

But tomorrow, when their weekend ends and business resumes as usual, Lance isn’t sure if he can look Keith in the eyes anymore. He definitely can’t sit across from him at that long conference room table. He definitely can’t listen to Keith debate trade routes and communications with growing nations—not all while listening to his own stupid voice bellowing out that ridiculous confession, rattling endlessly around in his head. Not while remembering that strange, unreadable expression that had sat so beautifully and infuriatingly on Keith’s flushed face.

He takes so many deep breaths to calm down that he reminds himself of his sister, practicing her Lamaze. He thinks about how she used to sit cross-legged on their living room floor—so round and practically ready to pop—how she used to tell him that training her breathing would help when his nephew was finally ready to be born. Lance wonders if breathing practices could have stopped him from acting like such an idiot in front of Keith. He wonders if there’s more to zen yoga than he’d ever given it credit for, when the breaths make him feel better, and he begins to calm down just enough that he actually manages to turn off the shower just as the water runs cold.

He isn’t going to enjoy facing Keith in the morning. He isn’t going to feel like a soldier, or a hero, or a person worthy of the Paladin title if he hides away either.

He feels nothing but dread when he thinks about their early meeting tomorrow morning, but he knows that it will come inevitably, no matter what he does.

And as he steps out of the shower, he comes to a compromise quietly, privately, with these two warring halves of himself.

Tonight, he’ll hide away in his room and sleep until he forgets who he was last night.

And tomorrow, like the hero that he is, he will face Keith’s fiery wrath, the aftermath of his big mistake, the judging looks and the knowing, apologetically sad smiles, and whatever other terrible things might be waiting to spring out at all.

 

* * *

 

Lance awakens the next morning at exactly 5AM. He manages such a seemingly improbable feat only because his alarm is loud, and overbearing, and it’s blaring just far enough on the other end of his nightstand that he can’t reach it to turn it off while still lying in bed. He knows that past Lance moved it for that specific purpose, that last time that he stumbled into a meeting half an hour late, Keith’s eyes had rolled, and he’d stuck out his lips in a moody pout, and Lance had been introduced to a new version of an old friend—

A Keith who could be properly disappointed in him, and a Keith whose disappointment actually managed to sting more than any snotty remark that he could have made.

But thinking about Keith now is only depressing him. It only manages to remind him of why he’s dreading this early meeting. And it brings a sense of panic rushing back over him—in a wave that reminds him too intimately of the hangover that he’d suffered through all day yesterday. Of how it had felt to stand among that group of his closest friends and fellow soldiers and nearly throw up on himself after screwing everything up between himself and, well…

The only person who he’s ever been in love with.

He rubs both hands over his face. The meeting, scheduled for 6 AM, gives him just a large enough window of time that he can squeeze in a morning shower and brush his teeth. Maybe, last night, he might have allotted a few extra minutes to grab breakfast as well, but his belly is doing so many flips now that he isn’t sure if he could keep down his food even if he might be willing to try eating anything.

So, instead of even humoring himself, instead of pretending that everything is fine and he won’t be walking on eggshells basically the entire morning—hoping that he can avoid Keith’s gaze, fly just below the radar that anyone else might bring up his abhorrent behavior that must have ruined their party—he slinks back to the locker room. He showers longer than usual, and takes a lot of extra time to moisturize his face.

He figures that, at the very least, if he has to be humiliated today, he might as well look his best while he’s doing it. Or as nice as he possibly can while wearing the garish Garrison colors, and sitting awkwardly in those stiff chairs, in a poorly-lit room, among a whole lot of other tired people who know far more about him at this point than he’s particularly comfortable with.

He brushes his teeth, washes the face mask from his cheeks. And he stares at himself in the foggy mirror, wonders who he might have to be to be good enough for someone like Keith.

But he knows now—how he must not have when he was younger—that it isn’t a game of being good or bad. It’s not about being talented or funny, or handsome. It’s not about having the best pick-up lines or pulling off the coolest moves.

Keith doesn’t like him because he never took the opportunity or the invitation to get closer to him. He didn’t recognize when things had changed like Hunk had, or Romelle had, or anyone else on the team who’s now capable of bringing out Keith’s beautiful, soft smile.

Lance draws his palm over his reflection, smearing the condensation with the fog and warping his downturned expression well enough that he doesn’t have to recognize himself anymore.

Today doesn’t have to be a disaster. If he can keep his mouth closed and his head down, Keith won’t bring it up. He knows that Keith isn’t the type of person to talk about his feelings or the feelings of others even on his best days. He knows that this doesn’t have to be “a thing” unless he makes it a thing.

This is the fourth mistake that he makes—assuming that things will go smoother than they actually will.

And he doesn’t realize this until he’s sitting in his stiff chair in that dark office, across from Keith at a wide, glossy desk. And Keith won’t stop sneaking looks at him. Keith seems as though he has something to say.

They’re debating the best trade routes with a newly rebuilt society at the furthest reaches of the universe. It’ll take a few months to travel out to these people, even with their most advanced technology, but the Garrison wants to send perishables that might not last the entire trip. The people on this planet are struggling agriculturally, and the introduction of new seeds or soil, or the infrastructure for greenhouses might benefit them greatly—but the soldiers among them are having a lot of trouble coming to an agreement of how to do so.

The people of this planet, apparently, have requested the perishables themselves. They claim that their ecosystem just isn’t suited yet to support the growth of their own crops. They seem to believe that collecting goods will be more lucrative than attempting to grow and raise them themselves—and while Shiro is making a good case for simply sending them the tools and help required to someday help themselves, Commander Iverson argues that the alliance is so young at this point, so volatile and unpredictable, and slighting them even accidentally might make their relationship rockier in the future.

Lance rubs at his temples, closing his eyes and placing his elbows firmly on the table in front of him. He’s already regretting not eating anything, as his belly rumbles. As his head begins to ache. He considers scooting his chair away from the table, getting up and circling the room for the water cooler tucked in the corner, but he doesn’t want to interrupt this meeting just to make a scene. He doesn’t want any more attention focused on him now than is possibly required in this meeting. He wants to be nothing but a wallflower here—seen fleetingly, never heard, so that hopefully everyone can forget about his flub the other night and move on.  He can feel Keith’s eyes rove over him, feels the heat of them like now-cooling coals rubbed over the surface of his skin. And goose pimples rise where Keith’s gaze licks him—the hair on the back of his neck rises, just as warmth rushes to his cheeks.

“Why don’t we just tell them that we can’t do it.” Keith’s voice is firm and loud. It jars Lance from his bubble, brings him crashing down to the reality of this meeting, the seriousness that they’ve delved into, and Lance’s own innate ability to only care about himself. “We should just tell them how we feel instead of keeping it secret, right? If we want something from them, we should be clear about it from the beginning instead of allowing them to get the wrong idea. That way, we aren’t sending them goods for years while secretly wanting to send them help instead, right? We aren’t expecting for them to just  _ get it _ while we give them all of the wrong signals?”

Lance’s eyes snap open. He stares hard at the table in front of him, before slowly, horrified, turning his gaze up to Keith’s face. Keith isn’t looking at him, but his eyes are hard while he watches the commanders considering his decision. A single hand is rested on the table, and its fist is tight, white, balled and subtly shaking. He doesn’t spare Lance another look, but it seems purposeful this time. Lance feels everything that he wants to say now—every argument, every objection, every apology and reassurance—balled up in his throat. So big and sticky that he can barely breathe around it.

Shiro sighs loudly, scratching at the back of his head.

“Why don’t we take a break?” he suggests, stretching wide and slow to pop the kinks in his back before slumping down in his chair. “It’s lunch time anyway. We can consider our options while we eat, then come to a decision once we come back.”

The officers around them file out. Shiro rests a comforting hand on Keith’s shoulder before he, too, rises from his seat to leave. He whispers something to Keith about doing a good job, and Lance feels like he’s drowning. He feels like he’s encapsulated himself in the past—as though he’s trapped here, as the same person, still making the same mistakes, as everyone else grows, and thrives, and learns to move on.

Keith, as well, rises to leave the room, but only once everyone else is gone. And only when he’s at the door does Lance jump into action, does the adrenaline pump wildly in his veins, compelling him to knock his chair back, to skirt the desk deftly without running into the sides, to catch up to Keith’s receding back just as he’s standing in the threshold before the hall and to grasp him quickly by the shoulder, pulling him back.

“What the hell was that about?” Lance spits, before he can stop himself. Keith’s pretty eyes are wide and round. His mouth is lopsided, crooked in a curious combo of a wry, dry smile and sudden surprise. “What are you getting at, Keith?”

Keith tips his head to the side, raising both eyebrows in a mock-confusion so convincing that Lance almost drops the whole thing and apologizes, like—well, like he should have when he first caused all of this. But he knows Keith too well to be convinced, and if he knows one thing about Keith, even after he’s changed so much, it’s that sometimes, like now, when he has a full hand and he knows it, he likes to act coy for the sheer sake of allowing the other players to sweat it out.

It’s a cocky aspect of his personality that might have originally attracted Lance to him, but Lance doesn’t give himself even a second to think about this. He knows, if he does, that he’ll find himself soon so far down the rabbit hole of reasons why he’s fallen so irrevocably in love with Keith that he won’t even be able to confront him and clear the air between them now.

“Are you talking about the meeting, or in general, or—”

Lance shoves an accusatory finger in Keith’s face, just centimeters away from his nose. And Keith’s eyes cross for a moment when he looks at it. Lance wills his heart to stop beating so hard and fast, and swallows deeply, jerking away and crossing his arms over his chest.

Keith is cute even when Lance wants to strangle the life out of him. He’s too charming even when he’s tactfully skirting around the issues that Lance is trying so desperately to keep pressing.

He puts an extra foot and a half between himself and Keith, for good measure. He turns his body away just enough that he doesn’t have to look him in the eyes.

“Are you really going to tell me that the whole  _ “we should just be upfront about how we feel instead of acting like little middle schoolers with a crush” _ thing wasn’t directed at me? You totally weren’t implying that I should have just confessed my feelings to you instead of blurting them out in front of everyone?”

Keith spits a laugh. Lance doesn’t dare look at him, but he can already imagine the pretty, albeit surely guarded and less genuine, smile that Keith is offering in response to his questions.

“I don’t think I phrased it like that, but… no, we’re not gonna act like I wasn’t talking about you. Because I was. And you weren’t paying attention to the meeting like you should have been, so I thought maybe that would help you focus.”

Lance bites his lip, holding back a whole flurry of curses that he would like more than anything to unleash upon Keith.

But this Keith is boss Keith. This is Black Paladin Keith. This is the Keith who gets an extra ribbon on his uniform for being a leader of something, and the Keith who he has to listen to no matter what or it’s considered mutiny. Their rankings are arbitrary on the best days, he knows this, and he also understands that Keith is only his commander in the most technical sense of the word, but...

It won’t look good to any innocent passersby if a lowly paladin is cursing out the leader of Voltron, if they just so happen come down the hall and witness the two of them bickering in the doorway of this very public conference room. Appearances are all part of this gig, he’s realized. They must appear to the outside world as though he has nothing but respect for his selfless leader. They have to pretend that things are peachy keen among their team, no matter how desperately he’d love to reach forward and strangle Keith right now.

This forced reservation allows Lance to comb through his feelings—it allows him to resist his knee jerk reaction to turn this into just another one of their fights. When he gives himself a moment to mull over what Keith has told him, and what he’s already admitted in return, Lance finds that he wants nothing more than to just talk about it.

He wants to clear the air without bickering. He just wants Keith to understand him, finally, after so many missed opportunities.

So he forces himself to calm down, to breathe deeply, to ease the tension from his muscles and stuff his hands in his pockets, finally turning to look at Keith. Keith doesn’t laugh at him, and he isn’t grinning smugly. He looks a lot less cocky about all of this than Lance might have anticipated, looks a lot less eager to rub this in his face as though, in the end, he’s even bested Lance in the act of not catching feelings, the reserved and stone-hearted little prick that he is.

And he’s blushing. Yeah, he’s definitely embarrassed.

Something about even Keith himself being flustered during this moment makes Lance’s skin feel ten thousand degrees hotter than before.

“I’m sorry,” Lance bites out, “I mean—obviously I didn’t mean to admit it like that. I didn’t… I didn’t mean to  _ ever _ admit it, actually, I just—I was drinking. And you’ve changed a lot. I keep thinking about how I finally ran out of time. Like, this whole—this whole time I kept telling myself that maybe someday we’d have our moment, and we’d both be ready for it, but then—”

His arms are crossed over his chest again, but this time, it isn’t defensive. He isn’t trying to pretend that he doesn’t care about any of this, that he’s angry, that he’s itching to lash out at any unfortunate misstep that Keith might make. This time, he’s holding himself tight—his fingers tangled in the loose edges of his uniform, pressed into his rib bones, feeling every stiff breath expanding them, as though oxygen could ever fill this growing void within his chest.

He’s staring hard at the corner of the door, where it jitters desperately—where it waits for Keith to step to either side of the threshold so it can slide closed behind him.

But Keith doesn’t move, doesn’t talk. He just watches Lance, quietly. He waits for him to finish his explanation.

“Then—then you went away. For a really long time. And I guess I thought, well, maybe he’ll come back and I’ll be better. I can… I can actually be nice to him and maybe he’ll be nice too, but… you changed. And I don’t feel like I did. I felt like—like suddenly you were leagues ahead of me just when I was starting to catch up, and I still liked you a lot, but…”

He pushes out a long breath. He can feel it rattling through him, howling in the deep recesses of empty insides.

“I think I missed my chance with you. I think… I ruined things so much a long time ago that we’re never gonna see eye-to-eye, are we?”

With that, his gaze is on Keith again. And Keith’s face is void of any discernible emotion, just as it had been the other night. He’s as still as all of the photos of him in the magazines—in the hall of fame in the town square, on the glitchy screen of a transmission when he’d been with the Blade, and Lance had felt as though he’d never see Keith move, or laugh, or smile ever again.

But then, Keith does smile. He disrupts the still surface of the water, he reaches forward and places a big, warm, comforting hand on Lance’s shoulder.

His smile is radiant—like the sun. Like fire, like smoke rising warmth inside of Lance, illuminating the dark corners of him like the lit candle within a lantern. Lance’s breath catches in his throat. He exists in this brief moment for three eternities—enjoying Keith’s grin, his soft, dark eyes. The realization that this is a moment just between both of them—their moment, finally—until Keith shatters it with gentle words.

“You’re an idiot.”

Lance takes it all back just as fast. Immediately, he shoves Keith off and moves a few paces away.

“Okay, fine, I get it! I know it’s stupid!” Lance can feel a wetness pooling in his eyes, and he feels incredibly idiotic. His chest feels tight, his heart is pounding. He knew that it would end like this. He was prepared for that but…

But maybe he’d always hoped that things would go better than this. That Keith—this newer, softer, stronger Keith—might take pity on him and understand that he didn’t choose to feel this way. He didn’t mean to fall harder and harder for him over the years. He didn’t intend for any of this to last nearly as long as it has.

He forces his voice to stay even, but the corners of his words are sharper, warbled with an emotion that’s crashing like tidal waves in his chest.

“I—I know I’m stupid for even thinking that you’d feel the same, but—but I didn’t  _ want  _ to tell you, okay? I-I didn’t mean to—”

Keith has him by both shoulders now, in a span of time so brief that Lance is almost surprised not to see his bayard in hand—surprised that he didn’t just teleport closer instead of moving at a natural, human speed.

But Keith is closer now—close enough to see the wetness in his eyes, the dark color on his cheeks. Close enough to affirm that none of this is a joke, and Lance really is this pathetic, and stupid, and misguided.

He wants to look away. He wants to be dramatic and childish and he wants to melt down into the grime between the tiles—the little pieces of dirt that the wet mops can’t ever wash away.

He wants to be anywhere but in this moment—with Keith’s face so close to his. With his vulnerable feelings put out on display. With his heart pounding so wildly inside of him that he’s positive that Keith can hear it beating too.

“Lance,” Keith says then, his face so close that Lance can feel the warmth of his breath on his heated cheeks.

And he isn’t expecting the lips. He isn’t expecting for Keith to draw him nearer, into his very first kiss. It isn’t terribly long or terribly graceful. They knock together with the finesse of two virgins fumbling with intimate human touch for the very first time—and he almost laughs at both of them. At the wide eyed, idiotic, slack-jawed awe that he stares at Keith with when he pulls away, or the misplaced determination and absolute embarrassment that sits so charmingly on Keith’s pretty face.

“I mean…” Suddenly, Keith, too, is at a loss for words. “You’re… you’re an idiot.”

And they both look away, but Keith doesn’t let go of either of his shoulders.

There are a lot of words that exist in the following silence. There are a lot of lines that Lance reads between—that kiss, the strange, unreadable expression, his clumsy confession, Keith’s inability to react to it.

Everything clicks into place a lot later than it should—and he knows this. He knows that they’ve both wasted time.

But Keith’s hands drop down from his shoulders, his fingers slide between Lance’s fingers.

And his eyes are big, and dark, and all-consuming. His smile is shy and soft.

Lance has never seen him look more vulnerable. He’s never seen him look so scared, or so happy, or so at peace in any moment as he does right now.

“I always thought we’d have more time too, but…” Keith’s forehead is warm when it drops against his. His hair tickles Lance’s cheeks and the bridge of his nose. “You were the first one to say it, and… you’ve always been better at this kind of thing than I am.”

They’re running behind. They’ve allowed a lot of opportunities to pass them by.

But Keith’s second kiss is soft and warm, and less clumsy. Keith’s hands are big and calloused, but they feel so good holding Lance’s.

His “I love you too” sounds more musical than Lance could have ever imagined it. Their moment is worth the wait, the stress, the struggle of half a decade spent dancing around everything that they must have been feeling, together, in secret.

The afternoon brings the end of their lunch break, and their meeting resumes.

And finally, after much discussion, they decide to tell their new alliance how they feel, instead of dragging things out.

Lance can’t help but send Keith a cheeky grin when they come to that conclusion.

And Lance’s final mistake is thinking that no one around them can tell what went down during that short break.

But with this final mistake, at the very least, everyone around them has enough tact not to mention it. No matter how uncomfortable their corny little lovesick glances are making the other officers in the conference room feel.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This story was requested by the always very sweet and lovely [spoiledspine](http://spoiledspine.tumblr.com)!
> 
> It's always a great pleasure to be able to write their ideas, and I was so excited about this one. Thanks so much, again, for the opportunity!
> 
> And I hope you enjoyed it! <3
> 
> [tumblr](http://curionabang.tumblr.com), [twitter](https://twitter.com/MothIsland)


End file.
